Carnival Cruise Lines today
announced further details of
the upcoming Carnival Legend
deployment in Australia
The cruise company’s down under capacity
will increase by 50% next year, when Legend
joins year-round sister ship Carnival Spirit for
its own inaugural local summer season.
CCL director Australasia Jennifer Vandekreeke
said that Legend would operate 8-12 cruises to
Pacific destinations including New Caledonia,
Vanuatu and Fiji – which would provide
flexibility for some innovations in Carnival
Spirit voyages.
Spirit will introduce a series of Sydney-based
three-night “cruises to nowhere” – three of
which will depart on a Fri night so guests won’t
even need to take a day off from work.
Next year, Carnival Spirit will also operate her
first Melbourne Cup cruise, an 8 night voyage
including three nights in Melbourne.
Vandekreeke said Carnival Cruise Lines was
strongly committed to the Australian market,
with internal research showing the brand
“seems to have tapped into a huge deep well
of interest in cruising”.
She said that CCL targets households with
a $75,000+ annual income, and in that arena
there are strong aspirations to cruise despite
only about 30% of people actually having been
on board for a holiday.
Carnival Cruise Lines has made much of the
“Aussification” of its product, and Vandekreeke
said despite extensive preparation, there was
still some tweaking to be done after Carnival
Spirit arrived for her first season late last year.
Unlike their American counterparts, she said
that the cruise line has found that Australian
families “actually like to spend time with their
children” so the onboard product has been
“completely changed” to add more family
activities and a rejig of dining times.
Another key change has been the
development of the on-board coffee to suit
Australian tastes, Vandekreeke added.
So far, Carnival Cruise Lines has carried
55,000 passengers on its Australian cruises,
and that number is set to be hit “out of the
ballpark” with the extra capacity provided by
the Legend deployment.
Carnival Legend will arrive in Sydney on 23
September 2014, staying until April 2015,
before returning for a second summer in
2015/16, with further details of the ship’s onboard
product available by the end of July.
